


Home Fires Burning

by T Verano (t_verano)



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: 2013 TS Secret Santa Drabble Days prompt "Alfred Nobel - Nobel Prize", Angst, M/M, Post TSbyBS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2020-04-11 10:39:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19107994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_verano/pseuds/T%20Verano
Summary: Jim sees something in the newspaper, which leads to him seeing something else.





	Home Fires Burning

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 2013 TS Secret Santa Drabble Days prompt "Alfred Nobel - Nobel Prize"
> 
> (This isn't "holiday"-type seasonal at all. Sorry! I would've added at least some reference to the season, but the 500 words got used up concentrating on the prompt. (I'm pretending the Salvation-Army bell-ringers and Christmas carols on the truck radio Jim would've encountered on his way home added to his lousy day; that's as seasonally-reference-y as I can get for this one…)

It had been a lousy day, and it wasn't improved by the newspaper lying on the living room table. One glance while Jim was hanging up his jacket was enough for him to see the headline: _'Nobel Prizes Awarded.'_

The icy hollow Jim had been carrying in his stomach for months now grew even colder. It was all so fucked up. Nothing had gone right since the day reporters had ambushed him and Blair, wanting to talk with 'the sentinel.'

"Okay, what?"

Blair, observing too much, as usual.

Well, nothing had gone right except that Sandburg hadn't left.

Yet.

Jim headed toward the couch, where Blair was sitting cross-legged with a stack of books and legal pads. More research, then. Research that might end up solving the whole mess —

Or making it worse, if it meant Sandburg leaving.

Jesus, he was a selfish SOB. If it made things better for Blair, Blair _should_ leave.

"Jim? Something wrong?"

Jim's eyes met Blair's for a moment before sliding back toward the newspaper.

Blair winced. "Oh. Look —"

"I know that could've been you."

"No, Jim, it really couldn't. I need you to understand something, okay?" Blair looked up at Jim intently. "You know, Alfred Nobel said, 'Home is where I work and I work everywhere,' and I used to live by that. It's a pretty good philosophy for an anthropologist."

Damn it. Everything was so fucked up. "Chief —"

"There's a better philosophy, though. Took me a while to learn it." Blair drew in a deep breath, like he was gathering himself together, but his eyes stayed steady on Jim's. "'Home is where the people I love are.' It has nothing to do being an anthropologist or being a teacher or being a cop." He took in another deep breath, and now he was wearing his 'go-for-broke' expression. Jim hadn't seen that in far too long. "I'm home right here. If you want me to be here."

Jim couldn't be understanding him right. Couldn't be.

Not now. Not after everything that had happened.

He shook his head; not in negation, but in uncertainty. "You're saying…"

"Yeah, you're my home, Jim. Corny, right?" 

The expression on Blair's face now was the same lost, uncertain look he'd worn in the hospital after his press conference, like he was expecting Jim to kick him to the curb — or pat him on the shoulder, be so fucking patronizing again—

Like he was expecting Jim to not get it. Or to not want it, even if he did finally see what was in front of him.

Jim wasn't going to make that mistake again; he'd been making it for a long time, apparently. He was sitting on the coffee table in front of Blair before he consciously decided to move, one hand reaching to touch the side of Blair's face —

And stay there, fingers gently caressing Blair's skin.

"Not corny at all," he said. 

_Home._

No, not corny at all. 

He leaned in closer to Blair. Closer to home.


End file.
